Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 range hits Australia

blog Your writer wasn’t able to attend, due to an already hectic itinerary, but Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung this morning launched its latest range of Android tablets at a breakfast event in Sydney. There are three models in the new Galaxy Tab 3 line, in three different sizes: 7″, 8″ and 10.1″, which, Gizmodo reports (we recommend you click here for the full article, or you can get the same news from PCWorld), will be selling for pretty great prices — $249, $349 and $399 respectively. There aren’t many reviews of the Galaxy Tab 3 series available from major outlets yet (Delimiter should also get review units eventually), but those that are up agree that the Galaxy Tab 3 range is pretty swell. For example, GSMArena has done a comprehensive review of the 8″ model, finding:

“The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is a good-looking tablet, compact and lightweight, running the latest Android version available and offering some exclusive value-adding apps and features. It’s capable of delivering a consistently pleasant experience, though not quite unforgettable.”

“The Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 offers a thin and light design, a built-in TV remote and a look and feel that will be familiar to Samsung phone owners, but this Intel Atom-powered tablet suffers from too much lag.”

From the cursory look that your writer has been able to take of the range, it appears that Samsung’s normal build quality and design aesthetic applies here; if you’ve played with one of Samsung’s recent smartphones or tablets, you pretty much know what you’re getting here. The biggest difference which you can expect to see with the Galaxy Tab 3 range is the usage of Intel’s Atom processor at their core, instead of the ARM chips commonly used in mobile devices. It’ll be interesting to see what difference the new chips make in terms of the Galaxy Tab 3’s battery life and processing power.

In general we’ve really liked Samsung’s tablet releases recently (see our review of the Note 8.0 here and the Note 10.1 here). However, we have tended to prefer the Google-branded Nexus line (Nexus 7 review here and Nexus 10 review here) over Samsung’s models in the past, due primarily to different design choices and the inclusion of the stock Android ‘Nexus experience’. It’ll be interesting to see if Samsung can outdo Google with this latest line.

One final thing I’ll say here: The prices are pretty sweet. $249 is precisely the right price point for the 7″ model. $349 is a little expensive for the 8″ model, but within the bounds of acceptable, as is the $399 for the 10.1″ model. We think these will be quite the sellers for Samsung in Australia.

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